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Fatalities prompt sport bike safety course

NORFOLK, Va. — All sailors and Marines who ride high-performance racing motorcycles, also known as sport bikes, will soon be required to complete a one-day safety course.

Under a rule now awaiting approval from the Navy Department, all personnel, including civilians, need to complete the course to maintain a base access sticker.

In conjunction with the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, it will be available first in Norfolk, San Diego, Camp Lejeune, N.C., and Jacksonville, Fla., then spread to Navy and Marine Corps communities across the U.S. and overseas.

Adm. Jonathan Greenert, U.S. Fleet Forces commander, says too many service members are getting injured or killed on high-performance motorcycles.

“We need to arrest that trend,” he said during a safety course Wednesday on Naval Station Norfolk.

So far in fiscal 2008, 30 of the 32 sailors and Marines killed in motorcycle accidents were riding sport bikes, according to a message from the Naval Safety Center.

That’s compared with fiscal 2007, when 66 percent of Navy motorcycle fatalities and 78 percent of Marine motorcycle deaths involved sport bikes.

Called the “advanced sport bike course” the one-day session includes classroom lessons on risk assessment as well as riding evaluations on an outdoor range.

Since 1972, military motorcycle riders have been required to complete the basic rider course to obtain a base access sticker. Now sport bike riders — who make up half of the 25,000 motorcyclists in the Navy and Marine Corps — will need to complete additional instruction.

Sport bikes, because of their design and high power, are not as simple to ride as a traditional motorcycle, according to Don Boroski, motorcycle safety manager at the center.

“They are an unstable platform, which is why they are maneuverable and fast and outperform the rider 90 percent of the time. The horsepower ranges up to 180hp,” he said. “You are not going to teach a guy how to fly a Cessna and then put him in an F-18.”

Aviation Machinist’s Mate 1st Class (AW) Amilcar Andrade started riding five months ago and said he’s grateful for the additional riding lessons.

“This is a really good course for me,” he said during a break in the class.

Originally from Cape Verde, off western Africa, Andrade said he bought a motorcycle to save money on gasoline, but now he just enjoys riding it.

And his Suzuki 600 Katana is how he commutes to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 26 on the Norfolk base.

“If the weather is good, that’s my ride to work,” he said.

Rear Adm. Arthur Johnson, commander of the Naval Safety Center, said sailors and Marines perform with confidence in high-risk environments every day on duty, whether that’s on a flight deck or in on the ground in Iraq.

“We want to create that same mind-set in sport bike riders,” he said. Johnson said individual commands will be held responsible for compliance with the program.

The rule is expected to become official in two weeks, according to Naval Safety Center spokeswoman April Phillips.